In an atheistic universe, what becomes of morality? This is a question I believe one must struggle with in pondering the nonexistence of God as I believe the concept of Him at least is a cornerstone of morality. Think of the origins of morality for a moment if there is no Divine source behind ethical frameworks.
In such a reality it then follows that every society ultimately builds its moral frameworks on physical processes outside of human control with a primary emphasis on survival and reproduction and not truth.
“The principle chore of brains is to get the body parts where they should be so that the organism may survive. Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing [the world] is advantageous so long as it... enhances an organism's chances for survival. Truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost.”
― Patricia Churchland
Our logical, mathematical, and physical intuitions have not been designed by natural selection to track the truth
Sam Harris Moral Landscape Page 66.
With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.
Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham July 3, 1881
If consciousness is ultimately an illusion of our brains (a conclusion I believe is inescapable if you are gridlocked into the philosophical foundations of physicalism) then just who is really hurt by anything? I tend to agree with philosopher Daniel Dennet's conclusions that, if atheism were true, then consciousness is simply an illusionary trick of our brains, similar to a computer user interface.
https://mindmatters.ai/2019/01/has-science-shown-that-consciousness-is-only-an-illusion/
Removing God from the equation takes away the problem of Numbers 31 and so why do I feel such a strong aversion to the idea of the Israelites slaughtering unconscious meat robots? I don't become upset when someone smashes a bug, but if all life is just surgings of electrical activity between protein tubes and experience is not ingrained in the architecture of our brains then it's merely the illusion of conscious pain.
If someone were to program two unconscious robots (Jean Searle’s Chinese Room argument), one built as a young boy and the other an adult man, and run a program for the adult robot to kill the robot child (though I would think it bizarre of a person to create such a thing), I certainly can not charge him of evil as it's just electrical wiring carrying out a program and if all we are is biological electrical wiring following the program of DNA with the illusion of consciousness (something you are forced to in physicalism Daniel Dennet is absurd but at least consistent), why does it make a difference if it happens in silicon or flesh when it's identical? Consciousness is an illusion created by our brains in such a world.
And so I find myself losing all moral grounds to object to the Biblical texts in the context of atheism, but why am I objecting? Programming? Is it any more wrong to light particles on fire than slaughtering a recollection of those particles in the form of a child? At what point does a recollection of particles that are okay to light on fire become not okay in relation to others? It may feel wrong but if that feeling is not based on an objective standard but simply the release of chemicals in our brains, would it be morally acceptable to harm if it releases “feel good chemicals”? The answer is no, but why?
It seems to me if one were to approach this from an atheistic worldview, then no one was truly hurt (if consciousness is an illusion), our moral beliefs are predetermined, and that it is the “subjective” wiring that believes certain behaviors are abhorrent. To the Israelites, killing an Amalekite child is not morally reprehensible, to someone such as myself it is, but if both of our moralities are formed and shaped by natural selection, through random unguided processes which determine our thoughts, what happens to rationality?
Given these conditions are we able to even say something is a moral truth claim? And if so how do I hold anyone accountable for simply following their biology? It seems if I am going to reject the idea of God entirely, my objection to anything I deem a moral atrocity loses its power and so Numbers 31 is just as much a problem for the atheist as it is for the Christian… but am I able to dismiss the idea of evil entirely? Am I ready to give up rationality altogether?
I don't want to even quote the words of Albert Fish, but if anyone decides to look up his letter to Grace Budd’s mother please be warned it is incredibly disturbing and that to say it is one of the cruelest and disgusting acts of evil ever to curse mankind does not do justice in describing the depths of its depravity. In short, he tricked a mother and father into letting him take their daughter and he ended up strangling her and eating her. Imagining her cries of terror, I can't pretend her conscious experience was an illusion and that she really suffered.
https://viralnova.com/fish-letter/
Was I ready to accept the cost of atheism and admit it's nothing more than his biological wiring and my subjective sense of right and wrong that makes me have such a moral aversion to this sick and twisted abomination of a “human?” I hope that you have taken time to reflect on the moral argument for God's existence because this is precisely where we need to ask ourselves this important question.
If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Was what Albert Fish did objectively evil independent of human perception?
If you say yes, God exists.
If you say, what he did is not evil.
I see no way of escape from this, my moral intuitions flare up against such behavior and it seems to me the statement, “raping and eating little girls is always wrong” is just as true as “2 plus 2 is 4” and I don't believe that if there were no universe for evil to be carried out, either statement becomes false or loses its truth value.
In other words, if I accept the logical conclusions of atheism, then I lose my objection to Numbers 31, but if I maintain some sort of Theism, I may hold my objection as perhaps there is some sort of God that exists and it's not the God of the Bible?
I can't bring myself to say what Albert Fish did is not evil, so I say yes to the question and so I am stuck with God. The question no longer becomes a matter of the existence of a Supreme Creator but what possible reason could the Lord Jesus have for allowing this?
So far we have concluded that the atheistic objection to Numbers 31 is completely bankrupt and without a foundation to be able to successfully attack the character of God, but if we accept that there is a Moral Law Giver we still have a problem.
Is Yahweh the Moral Law Giver or is our moral repulsion to the behavior of the Israelites based upon the Moral Law Giver who is not the Israelite concept of God?
First, let me clarify something crucial here. As we dive into the evidence for any worldview, we need to remain consistent with the facts we know and the arguments we are convinced of. I'm simply going to quote from one of my older articles as it doesn't matter if I cite myself or not!
“Ultimately if I were to reduce my faith to its bare structure, “the skeleton” if you will, it will boil down to three premises.”
The existence of God
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead
My personal experience with God
These three points alone are sufficient for me to have a reasonable foundation for my belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and in my dialogue with others, the rejection of these truths are either the result of intellectual dishonesty (a rejection of the historical facts, in other words applying one standard to a different historical figure that would convince you of a fact of their life but when applying the same standard to the facts of Jesus life would force you to accept it, like the empty tomb) or a philosophical bias with a priori assumptions about reality that prevent someone from believing in Christ even if He appeared to them and shook their hand after turning water into wine, walking on water in front of them and raising their dead friend back to life!”
As stated above, if I am convinced of these three lines of evidence, then I am able to maintain my faith in Christ as the evidence for God and His resurrection are independent of Numbers 31. Numbers 31 could not be true (even the entire Old Testament could be a fabrication along this line of reasoning), the Bible could be full of errors and Jesus would still be Lord of all Creation and my belief in Him would be justified and reasonable. Sure, there may be problems in regards to inerrancy and a bunch of questions that come along with believing Jesus is Lord and God raising Him from the dead while rejecting the Old Testament, however from a purely evidentiary standpoint, it would be irrational to reject the evidence for the resurrection based on a moral objection.
If Islam were true I would accept it while rejecting Allah and telling him to send me to hell as simply not liking it does not somehow make it not true.
Now I've experienced the Lord's love, His Holy Spirit dwells me and I know Him. I know He is good and it's enough for me now, so whatever the answer to Numbers 31 is, it can't be because He is not good. So what do we make of it? There are a few approaches we may take.
We can appeal to the textual God, versus the actual God.
“A key element in Seibert’s solution to the problem of biblical texts that depict a violent God is to embrace as normative the God revealed in Jesus: “the God Jesus reveals should be the standard, or measuring rod, by which all Old Testament portrayals of God are evaluated. Old Testament portrayals that correspond to the God Jesus reveals should be regarded as trustworthy and reliable reflections of God’s character, while those that do not measure up should be regarded as distortions” (185). Importantly, Seibert points out that this God is also found in the Old Testament. The violent images of God are not the dominant ones; God is—above all—good, just, merciful, and forgiving. One can find the same measuring stick in both Old and New Testaments.”
https://directionjournal.org/40/2/thoughts-on-eric-seiberts-idisturbing.html
I personally do not take this view as Revelation 2:20-23 and 19:19-21 seem pretty consistent with what we read in the Old Testament, but it's a possible view.
We simply can admit we do not have all of the knowledge that God has so we are not justified in making a moral critique or question Him at all, so we withhold judgements.
Here is a simple scenario, if we saw a father yelling at his son and pushing him out of the house as his son cries in tears begging to come back in it would be easy to assume the father is evil, based on the information we have. If however we find out his son was abusing drugs and it led him to strike his sisters and hurt his mother, then the father's actions are justified. From God's vantage point, he sees all factors that we simply can not and so He may have morally sufficient reasons for allowing what he does, just as the father did in our hypothetical scenario.
We can do our best to actually confront the text and do our best to make sense of it.
This is what I did and I will offer my personal understanding as I did my best to make sense of the text.
Here is a theodicy I worked on.
God originally made man in a paradise safe from the effects of natural disaster and animal predation (Genesis 1:31, 2:10-25).
God is sovereign over animals and can cause them to go against their natural instincts and keep humans safe (1 Kings 13:24, Daniel 6:16-22 and Isaiah 11:6-9).
God is sovereign over nature and can prevent disasters and stop them (Mark 4:35-41, Matthew 14:22-33, Jonah 1:4, Zechariah 10:1).
God can supernaturally bring forth food and feed everyone despite famines (Exodus 16, 1 Kings 17:2-16, Matthew 14:13-21, Luke 5:1-9).
God is good and cares about His creatures (Psalm 149:5, Nahum 1:7, 1 John 1:5, James 1:13).
People either go to heaven or hell and need Jesus for salvation (Revelation 20:11-15, John 3:36, Matthew 25:45-46, John 6:47).
Temporal suffering is better than eternal suffering
God uses suffering to bring us back to Him (Deuteronomy 28, Revelation 2:21-23, Ezekiel 18, Luke 13:1-5) and suffering often brings is to think about God.
God has given man free will (Joshua 24:14-15, Deuteronomy 30:19, Matthew 11:28-30).
God could end suffering but chooses not to
Therefore God took His hand off of creation when we rebelled and allowed us to live in a world without His leadership so we can see what it is like without His divine protection so we will seek Him as the only One who can make things right.
I personally don't believe kids end up with cancer because God ordained it and I don't believe it was the will of God from all eternity for a woman to be brutally raped or that He planned and ordained any evil.
This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.
1 John 1:5
They have built pagan shrines to Baal, and there they burn their sons as sacrifices to Baal. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!
Jeremiah 19:5
We now live in a fallen world and God has given us a degree of freedom to govern ourselves and experience what life is like without Him and as a result, sometimes people simply are unlucky. The disease that strikes the unbeliever is the same disease that strikes the believer and the rapist who has the opportunity will not discriminate between a Christian or an atheist (God can intervene when He chooses of course, I'm just saying if He lets things run giving us true freedom, there are consequences). It seems to me that God has a few conditions He has set in this world that have real consequences.
He won't affect free will.
He allows nature to operate freely.
It will defeat the purpose of this article to delve too deeply into the problem of evil and so if anyone is interested you can read a more detailed response here. My point in laying out those two conditions is so that we can begin to answer the question of why God commanded the destruction of the Midionites.
Think of the recent Palestine and Israel conflict. History shows us that the children who are programmed into a destructive ideology often grow up to perpetuate the evil of their parents. Keep in mind that God had chosen Israel to be His representatives and anyone who has read the Old Testament knows that God judges Israel when they sin and plays no favoritism, so it's not a matter of favoring one people over the other. Remember Israel was chosen to be the nation through which the Messiah would come. If the perpetual violence from the Midianites would continue down the generations and God seeks to fulfill His promises, if they would thwart His plan if He did not intervene, then it seems He would need to put an end to the people to protect Israel.
Think of it this way, if someone threatened they were going to kill your family and there was no way they could be reasoned with, would you allow it to happen? If you learned that this individual was teaching their children to hate anyone with your last name and you were given divine foreknowledge that if they are not stopped, not only will your family be wiped out, your entire bloodline would be as well! If their goal is the entire destruction of your lineage and you know that they will succeed if you don't intervene now to stop them, what would you do? What makes their lives more valuable than yours and your families?
Who is morally at fault in this scenario, the people group that does not want to harm any families or the people group that does want to harm families?
Who would you rather want to be in this world between the two?
Consider the Nazi youth program. When the allies defeated them, we wiped out any symbol of Nazism we could find and dismantled the ideology entirely. Why? Intolerance? Or were we trying to ensure that this wicked thought process never resurfaced again?
So it seems to me that God has made the choice to protect His people, as Israelite life would be just as important to Him as Midianite life, but like the man protecting his family, His hand was forced to make a decision and intervene. If He will not violate our free will, then He must use other means to achieve His goals and so by our free will choices, we force God into a trolly problem.
Imagine the tracks as two possible worlds that could actuate into reality and the people on the tracts as two different realities, one where the Israelites are destroyed if He doesn't intervene and another where the Midianites are destroyed, but the Israelites live. God does not want to destroy either group (Ezekiel 33:11) but our free will decisions determine the train tracks God has to work with (if the Midianites left Israel alone, there would be an entirely different set of tracks, built on human decision that God would work in). Since the Midianites decided to try and wipe out Israel, they forced God to make a decision and He turned the tracks towards them to bring about the greatest possible good in a terrible scenario.
Ask yourself, are we more angry at the children who are indoctrinated into Islam who grow up to burn Jewish babies in their beds or the people indoctrinating them?
Are we more angry at the Nazi leaders or the children growing up in the ideology being taught to hate Jewish people?
If we can spare life, we should, so if the boys would grow up to perpetuate the evil of their parents, but the girls could become Israelite wives and be spared as equal citizens, then they should be spared (war rape was prohibited in Israel and she would have equal status, Deuteronomy 21:10-14) . This isn't God's ideal plan, He would simply be choosing the best possible solution from the factors.
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Matthew 19:7-9
What God allows and what God desires don't always match, He desires all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), but they aren't and while I believe the Lord would have preferred that Midianite girls to not be taken as plunder, if He won't violate free will and if there is a way to preserve their life, He chooses to do that and that is what He did. It's not the best scenario for the girls, but given the options it is certainly better than death.
Oftentimes there isn’t an ideal solution to moral dilemmas and we are forced to choose the best option from a litany of terrible ones. If God has chosen to give us free will and to limit Himself to our freedom, then He would seek to work out the best solution from the available options before Him and based on His foreknowledge and wisdom, it seemed out of all the possible courses of actions He could have taken to protect Israel, this was the best one.
We may not like it, but our freedom is one of the highest goods that God has given humanity and it is so precious, that He is even allowing people to make morally evil decisions. The Midianites did not have to pursue Israel or try to destroy them and if they repented that may have found mercy, but I believe the evil would not stop and eventually lead to the destruction of Israel. God had mercy for the girls because they had done no wrong and the boys would most likely only continue the evil of their parents, to avenge their people and continue the evil.
Consider the psalmist
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!
Psalm 137:9
Christ wants us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), but often trauma begets trauma. If you were an Israelite boy and the Midianites ruthlessly killed your family, you may find yourself wanting revenge and perpetuating the same evil, continuing the destructive cycle. The Psalmist, I believe, was simply praying out of his agony and it's not a reflection of God's heart. The Psalms simply show us how we should be vulnerable in our prayers, however what is in his heart sadly could become a reality.
Right now Israel is waging a war and children are being caught in the crossfire, who may grow up to hate the soldiers who are responding to the Gaza strip incident, who are watching their family be blown to bits over a conflict Hamas started. For revenge, these children may grow up to join Hamas and continue the conflict by killing more Israeli children. The Israeli children may then grow up to kill more Hamas children in the future (and God would know) and thus build even more “fee will train tracks” which God must then decide which direction He wants the “reality train” to go.
I believe the violence between these two nations would only escalate and if God were to achieve His plans for the salvation of mankind through Israel and fulfill His promises, He was forced to make a tough choice due to the Midianites free will rebellion.
A world without Israel means a world without Christ (God has to fulfill His Word, Hebrews 6:18) and while this would not be the Lord's ideal plan, He made the best choice given the options available to Him from the free will decisions of the Israelites and the Midianites.
Ultimately, the boys are in heaven with their Creator (something that may not have happened should they have grown up), the girls were spared and allowed to live a life where they were protected by the God of Israel with laws in place where they would not be able to be taken advantage of and Israel would be able to survive and bring about the Savior of the world.
Reflecting on all of this, even though the situation is rough, I have come to accept God's ways are true and He always makes the right choice. I don't know if this will be enough for you, but it has settled my heart.
I hope this was a blessing to you and helps as you wrestle with God over these tough issues.
Thank you for reading my friend, as always God Bless you and see you in the next one!
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